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Describing the successful hatching of a brood of Praying Mantis in an Australian garden
We are visited in our garden in Churchill, Victoria, Australia by two species of Praying Mantis.
The first is the Purple-winged Mantid – Tenodera australasiae, a long slender animal, mainly brown, but with green showing along its wing edges. We don’t see very many of these, perhaps two in the 20 years we have lived here.
The second is the much smaller Garden Mantid – Orthodera ministralis. This mantis is predominantly green and has a less elongated appearance. These are quite a common sight as they are attracted to our windows in the summer, preying on the many other insects attracted to the lights. We have seen as many as three on one evening and they are so regular as to well merit the name of Garden Mantid.
On 20th May 2007, I was examining plants in our shade house, when I saw what looked like a small piece of polystyrene, wedged in the axil of a leaf of one of the pot plants. On close examination I realised that it was some sort of egg case. It consists of about 14 cylindrical eggs, arranged in two rows and with foamy material packed around them. I suspected that they were eggs of a praying mantis, and a bit of searching on the internet seemed to confirm this and strongly suggested that these belong to the Garden Mantid.
The mantid egg case is named an Ootheca and is a cluster of eggs. To photograph the ootheca, I had to replace it in the leaf axil for a reasonably correct photo. I then decided to try and see the young emerge.
Having already dislodged the ootheca from the plant, I decided to glue it to a dry gum leaf (using PVC adhesive) and I placed the leaf in a jar in a position where I would see it every day.
After a month or so, I worried that the atmosphere in the jar was too dry, and I added a little water to the bottom of the jar. This was a mistake. After another week or two, I noticed that a mould was growing over the sides of the ootheca. I quickly got rid of the water and left the lid off for a while so that it could dry out. The mould very quickly disappeared, but I continued to worry that the fungus might have had a bad effect on the eggs.
On 24th August, 3 months after I found the ootheca, I was thrilled to see tiny little mantids in the jar beside the ootheca.
At this stage there were three visible, one of which was still attached to the ootheca and seemed to have its antennae and legs bound to its body. I quickly got my camera and photographed the little mantis. The photo attached, shows two baby mantis.
One baby is fully emerged and was running about. It looks the same shape as the Garden Mantis adult, but in miniature (it was about 11 mm long), except that it has an orange-brown stripe down the middle of the back, which could be its gut showing through its thin skin. The second animal (in the top of the picture, which also shows the ootheca) took only 5 minutes of wriggling to free itself and it was soon running about freely as well.
Once I was happy that I had them recorded on the camera, I released the babies in the shade-house, where I originally found the ootheca, and I also placed the ootheca in the shade house, so that any further babies to emerge would be free in the habitat chosen for them by their mother!
About Kennedy Harris
I garden in Australia. I have a great love for all of nature, and have been photographing plants and animals for many years
Posted by nanaluvsflwrs (from Rogers, AR) on January 28, 2008 at 9:20 AM:
I have seen seed catalogs advertise praying mantis eggs as well as lady bug eggs. Has anyone ever had any luck with these?
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Subject: Baby mantis
Posted by stones55 (from Ilion, NY) on December 12, 2007 at 10:07 AM:
Congratulations on your experience! It is a rare event to make the find and then follow the subsequent days to see the fruition of Mother Nature's work. I hope to find something as interesting and somewhat unique in my backyard travels some day...
lv
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Subject: Praying Mantis
Posted by Noturf (from Marquesas Islands
(Polynesia (French))) on December 10, 2007 at 5:12 PM:
Your photographs and observations have made feel glad I dropped by to read the article. It is rare to find something so interesting in gardening blogs, in which the honest enthusiasm creates curiosity and interest in the reader.
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Subject: expectant mother
Posted by swampfire (from Palatine, IL) on December 9, 2007 at 11:12 AM:
I am so glad that I saw your article....a large female visited us this summer in Palatine, IL...this is the first time I've ever seen one here and I've lived here 52 years. Obviously she was not alone. She left us with 3 ootheca's. 2 were laid on my autumn clematis and 1 in my plant room. We had brought her in, in Nov due to the 20 deg temp outside. Only days later she left us another bundle of joy. Sorry to say she also left us , but she would have perished those cold nights. We are keeping the ootheca's in the garage and plan on retuning them to the garden in the spring. We hope to enjoy them for years to come....how exciting!
Mary Ann
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Posted by kennedyh (from Churchill, Victoria
(Australia)) on December 9, 2007 at 3:31 PM:
Mary Ann
So glad that you also have a mantis mother visiting you.
I hope that you can get to see the mantis babies emerge from the oothecas, presumably some time in the spring,
Kennedy
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Posted by swampfire (from Palatine, IL) on December 10, 2007 at 10:51 AM:
Kennedy:
I will keep you posted. I just joined Dave's garden, this is a wonderful site for us nature lovers. My digital camera and computer is full of pictures of nature and all it's glory.
Great way to share .
Mary Ann
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Posted by kennedyh (from Churchill, Victoria
(Australia)) on December 10, 2007 at 3:33 PM:
Mary Ann
If your pictures include photos of insects and other bugs, we are building a database of Bugs under the name BugFiles: [HYPERLINK@davesgarden.com]
and would love to have some of your images help to extend its coverage.
If you have difficulty identify bugs that you have photographed, we have a Bug and Insect Identification forum where help is available for identifying bugs from all over the world: [HYPERLINK@davesgarden.com]
Kennedy
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Subject: New little guys!
Posted by angelazh (from Memphis, TN) on December 3, 2007 at 6:36 PM:
Great pictures! I have a hatching egg sac as my background on my laptop with 11 new babies on it. I got my first egg sac at a gardening center while I was in college. It was amazing to see those perfect tiny mantids! Now I want to find a place to get a few more egg sacs! It's kind of strange that I went from studying entomology to loving carnivorous plants...
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Posted by kennedyh (from Churchill, Victoria
(Australia)) on December 3, 2007 at 7:28 PM:
thanks angelazh,
it is very easy to love both the insects and the carnivorous plants. The mantids are also predators on other insects anyway. I did wonder what those tiny baby mantids feed on! I hope I gave them their best chance by putting them into my shade house where their mother had deposited the egg sac. I have not noticed any mantids since that day,
Kennedy
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Posted by mwperry (from Brandon, MS) on December 5, 2007 at 8:08 PM:
A wonderful story in picture you have told. Praying mantises have fascinated me from childhood. Their big eyes look over to you as if they know who you are, don't you think? Thank you for the day's delight!
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Subject: Congratulations for your efforts
Posted by 1mary2 (from Chesterfield, MO) on December 3, 2007 at 10:20 AM:
I enjoyed reading your article. I live in St. Louis, Missouri, USA, and haven't seen a Praying Mantis for many years.
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Subject: Lovely article on an elegant creature
Posted by Dea (from Frederick, MD) on November 28, 2007 at 10:20 AM:
Your article was a delight - thank you !
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Posted by melody (from Benton, KY) on November 28, 2007 at 2:57 PM:
Wonderful! Loved it Ken!
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Posted by Hyblaean (from Niles, IL) on November 28, 2007 at 5:38 PM:
More insect articles coming? This one was great!
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Posted by Tir_Na_Nog (from Houston
(United States)) on November 28, 2007 at 5:59 PM:
Thank-you for posting your user ID under your real name. It helps to know "who" is writing the articles!
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Posted by cathy4 (from St. Louis County, MO) on November 28, 2007 at 7:06 PM:
What a great story and pictures!
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Posted by victorgardener (from Lower Hudson Valley, NY) on November 28, 2007 at 7:23 PM:
Cool photos and story.
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Posted by KyWoods (from Melbourne, KY) on November 29, 2007 at 1:02 AM:
What fun! This reminds me of when I was a kid and did the same thing--it was exciting watching the little ones hatch. Terrific that you were able to capture them hatching with the camera--thanks for sharing this!
